1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a peripheral device, an information processing apparatus having mounted thereon a device driver that controls the peripheral device, and a system or the like including the peripheral device and the information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Machines that allow a plurality of extenders, such as page description language (PDL) extenders, to be connected to a print processing apparatus are increasing. Furthermore, in the case of a print processing apparatus that allows switching of a supported drawing system by mounting a corresponding extension board, for example, it is possible to support two drawing language systems PDL1 and PDL2 by the print processing apparatus.
Furthermore, with techniques of plug and play or the like, in response to connection of a peripheral device and an information processing apparatus, such as a host computer, the device sends a device ID, such as a machine type or manufacturer name, to the information processing apparatus, and the information processing apparatus selects and installs a device driver with reference to the device ID. In ordinary plug and play, of data for identifying a print processing apparatus, passed from the print processing apparatus to an information processing apparatus, information representing a drawing language system is disregarded, and a printer driver associated with the print processing apparatus is searched for from the information processing apparatus based on a device ID that is a manufacturer name and/or a name of the print processing apparatus.
According to the techniques described above, when an extension board is attached or detached, the type of PDL that can be processed by the same print processing apparatus could change. Furthermore, although a printer driver must be installed on a host computer in accordance with the type of PDL that can be interpreted by the print processing apparatus, plug-and-play techniques that have been used have had the following problems.
When a plurality of image forming processes can be executed by an image forming apparatus, it has not been possible to select and install a suitable device driver on an information processing apparatus.
For example, when a print processing apparatus supports PDL1 and PDL2 by connecting an extender, although a plurality of printer drivers associated with PDL1 and PDL2 are supported by the print processing apparatus according to the specifications thereof, whether PDL1 or PDL2 is used actually depends on the extender actually connected. Thus, in plug-and-play techniques that have been used, it has not been possible to uniquely identify the type of printer driver needed at a host simply by sending a machine type or manufacturer name to the host.
Another suitable example of print processing apparatus is a laser beam printer, which is used in embodiments described later. Other examples include various peripheral devices and image forming apparatuses, such as ink-jet printers, facsimile machines, laser beam printers, digital cameras, scanners, and combinations thereof.
For example, when a printer driver of the type PDL is found first by plug and play, even when a user needs a printer driver for PDL1, only the printer driver for PDL2 is installed to an OS for a print processing apparatus.
In such a case, when only an extension board for PDL1 is connected to the print processing apparatus, the extension board cannot interpret commands in PDL2. Since only the printer driver for PDL2 is installed on the host computer, when the user simply instructs printing, PDL data corresponding to PDL2 is sent to the print processing apparatus, possibly causing print error.
Even when print error does not occur, in the case of a print processing apparatus that is capable of supporting a plurality of drawing systems, a printer driver that is arbitrarily determined by an installer is installed, which involves PDL data conversion that is not recommended by the developer. This inhibits use of a printer driver for an efficient drawing system recommended by the developer.